Congress of Qualitative Inquiry

The Sixth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry took place at the campus of University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from May 26-th to 29-th. About 700 participants from around the world took part in large number of presentation, plenary and poster sessions. I will be writing more about the congress, but since I am publishing this blog on my way back to Norway, it will be just a short note about my own presentation on Friday May 28-th.

It is difficult to say much in short time: you have to present the contexts of your work so that your intentions would be understood, you have to say something relevant and important, you should say it in a way that makes the listeners interested, and you will have to sum up - or open up for further reflection. And all that in 12 minutes! Usually when I present I use many visual images. (This time the children’s parents had even allowed me to use films of their children.) But 12 minutes would be too short to sett up a projector, show the images and still have time to explain, discuss and tell about my lived experiences. I decided to write down what I should say, edit the paper again and again in order to make it shorter and more intense, and practice reading it in order to be able to look at audience while I was reading. Later, I was apologizing to Liora Bresler that I was reading while addressing the issue of multimodal communication and body language: “What a contradiction between the content and the form!” But Liora calmed me down: “That’s just how conference genre is!”

This is an image of me with Norwegian colleague Ingrid Grønsdal Arnesen outside the Union building.

And here is the abstract that can illustrate what I was talking about:
Intersubjectivity, Interpretation and Improvisation: How Three-Year-Old Students Challenge Researchers’ Competence

A PhD study of children’s meaning making during explorative play with sculpturing materials conducted by an art teacher/practitioner-researcher in a Norwegian early childhood center. The form of inquiry was inspired by A/R/Tography (Irwin 2004), involving video-recording of own activity with children. Children’s highly imaginative and multimodal forms of communication have challenged the researcher’s ability to create immediate and appropriate responses to the children’s creative verbal and non-verbal contributions. If we respect young children, value their way of living and want them to become self-confident individuals, research methods in early childhood education must respond to their expressive ways of democratic participation.

The Secret Life of my Brain

“Strange how brain sometimes work”, I wrote to my co-advisor to tell her how, during my preparing for presentation at the case study course, I suddenly understood how to solve a puzzle in writing something else. An hour later I receive an e-mail titled “Brain”. I smiled because I thought she was responding on my comment about the brain – but soon I realized that this mail was not from her. It was from Kurt Johannessen (2010), Norwegian performance artist and poet who from time to time sends inspiring words to the people on his mailing list. Here is the poem:

The Brain
In the year 4133 man discovered a new component in the brain.
It wasn’t clear whether the component had always been there,
or whether it had developed as a result of evolution.
It took many years for scientists to understand
the characteristics of this new discovery.
When they did finally solve the mystery,
everyone was astonished that they
hadn’t seen it earlier.

I thought how wonderful it was to receive exactly this poem, right now! In humoristic and complicating ways it described what I was just thinking about - It made me understand how complicated understanding can be. In the same time, I got curious about why receiving it made me so happy - ?

I used to collect napkins when I was a girl. May be I still am a collector? And this poem fitted perfectly to my collection of images, smells, words, experiences and sudden insights… Three months ago, in a plane magazine, I found an advertisement which amazed me. The text said: “Think before creating” and the image showed a textile brain. (The name of the photographer was not stated but the advertisement also said: “REDA – Finest fabrics made in Italy”.) Such collected “items” often inspire me even long time after they’ve been collected, and incredibly often make connections between themselves. I do not say that they do it without my interfering – I am sure that this process of connecting has something to do with my brain - or rather the unity Dewey called “body-mind”which is wirelessly connected to the world outside.


And here is what happened with the presentation I was preparing for the Robert Stake’s case study course: We were ten people in the room, some of whom I meet for the first time. I tried to be short, but felt like I was using too much time. I struggled with some words, and felt that I lost the structure I had planned… That is at least how I experienced the presentation from the inside of my body. And that is also why the feed-back I got from Terry Denny (who used to work with Robert Stake) was even more unexpected! What he told me after my presentation, and repeated it even more strongly when he approached me after the session, absolutely qualifies for my selection of extraordinary experiences! I have never before received such a strong encouragement to keep doing what I do! He said I have to write a book to describe how my understanding and learning from the 3-, 4- and 5-year-old co-researchers gradually unfolded during my interaction with them - or rather “intra-actions” as Hillevi Lenz Taguchi (2010) might have called this mutual influence between persons and their environments.

When I experience how strongly interactions with people influence my thoughts and feelings I am sure that trying to understand our brain has to include much more than “looking” inside it. As John Dewey wrote “the body-mind is not simply the acknowledgement of the sensory input that goes to the brain, but it is based upon the interaction of subject with a complex and challenging environment” (Davidson, 2004). We might never be able to understand all secrets of our brains, but being on our way to understand more is also something to celebrate, isn’t it?

The poem "Hjernen" / "The Brain" was first published in 1999 in the book "Nasefenomenet og andre hendingar" written by Kurt Johannessen, 1999.
In English: Kurt Johannessen (2010), translation by Gillian Carson: "Selected”. Zeth, Bergen http://www.zeth.no/boker2.shtml#selected

Davidson, J. (2004). Embodied Knowledge: Possibilities and Constrains in Art Education and Curriculum. In L. Bresler (Ed.), Knowing Bodies, Moving Minds: toward Embodies Teaching and Learning. Dorsrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Lenz Taguchi, H., Moss, P., & Dahlberg, G. (2010). Going beyond the theory: practice divide in early childhood education : introducing an intra-active pedagogy. London: Routledge.

Blurring Understanding

Understanding is certainly contextual. After a month in USA I frequently keep misunderstanding; Sometimes, of course, because of unfamiliar words, but mostly because I don’t know what people expect me to do. The first time I was buying a coffee I stood like a frozen when the shop-girl asked me: “How many creams?” I was so confused by the question’s grammatical inaccuracy of singularity/plurality of “cream”.

Sometimes I misunderstand because I read different “parts” (modalities) of communication in different, or even opposite ways. For example, I misunderstood a party invitation because in my mind I could not match the lay out of the invitation card with its contents. Knowing that there are many things I do not know does not really help much when others do not understand that I don’t understand. Then, I can tell you, it is not easy to buy a sandwich, take a buss or even cross a street. Fortunately, I have now learned how to cross a street! And even more: I have learned that crossing a street is a local phenomenon which I can not expect to be applicable other places in USA.


On my son’s way to Urbana Middle School, there are several crossroads with four “stop”- signs. Every driver stops his/hers car and waits. But how would they know who should drive when? From a perspective of a pedestrian on rollerblades, crossing a road is usually a risky business because possibility for braking is limited. That is why I decided to follow my son to and from the school. I soon found out how dependent the “four-stop-sign” driving is on multimodal communication; Drivers look at each other. They look at us pedestrians to establish eye contact. They smile, nod or wave to let us cross. I am sure they also do their interpretations of what they see: People with unsteady movements and they wait and wait for us to move over. And sometimes I and my son cross in front of them even if we intended to go another way – We do not want to disappoint the drivers who have showed such kindness and patience!

Things are for sure done differently in different parts of the world. Meeting people through University of Illinois, makes it possible for me to get in touch with people from different places in the world and learn a bit about Korea, South Africa, Bolivia… Each meeting seems to help me achieve a little bit more understanding about how one can view the world, and how limited my own understanding always will be. Cultures have for ages been formed by interactions between people, but also by climate, geography, flora and fauna, migrations, power difference… We all carry them with us multiple layers of oil paint: new layers every day… may be each time we share word with someone?


… May be oil paint is not a good metaphor – At least I feel that the lubrications are much more moister than oil pain, and get more easily absorbed into my body and become a part of my thinking… Drawing a line between my personal experience, and my striving to be a “good researcher”, I want to quote Robert Stake who wrote so wisely:

“It is an ethical responsibility for us as case researchers to identify affiliations and ideological commitments that might influence our interpretations – not only for the contracting parties but for the readers of reports, and, of course, for ourselves. But there is no way for us as evaluators to identify all relevant predispositions, or even know them” (Stake, 2006: 87).



Stake, R. E. (2006). Multiple case study analysis. New York: The Guilford Press.


All images show the same sculpture from The Millenium Park in Chicago.

Case (for) Studies

I am so pleased with possibility to attend Dr. Robert Stake’s case-study course (Educational Psychology 499) on Thursday afternoons! Showing up in the middle (or the end) of the course, not being familiar with the contents of the course, I try to participate as much as I can. This does not mean that I constantly undertake activities observable from the outside, but apparently passive engagement can also move and re-furnish one’s thoughts and understandings.


Getting engaged is not difficult in Dr. Stake’s classes: with variety of teaching approaches, he provides his students with possibilities for meaningful engagement and reflection. The three hours on the April 29-th seemed to be prepared to make diverse experiences possible (including diverse food tastes during the break); As an example of a self-study-case, Mr. Stake read for us poetically written essay by Loren Eiseley; To start reflections about (im-)possibilities of generalisation in case studies, he told us a fresh story from his own life; And to initiate a session of interactive, collaborative meaning making, he invited me to presented a half-imagined case study. Almost like in a “psychodrama” I played my role and the other students asked questions and gave advise to help me get closer to the core of my (imagined and borrowed) study. Little did they know that they in the same time also provided feed back on my “real study”.


Robert Stake was present on my presentation a week ago, but when we meet for a lunch, we did not directly speak about my project. Among other things, we spoke about curricula and documentation in early childhood, and I learned of his friendship with Loris Malguzzi (the founder of Reggio Emilia educational philosophy). Attentive and polite as he is, Mr. Stake did not ask many questions, but prepared some books for me to borrow as an extension of our conversation.


When we talk to someone, or present something, we always make thousands choices. What I wrote here about my meetings with Robert Stake and the three hours from the case-study-course is just a narrow selection from my experiences… and my own experience is of course completely different from experiences of others that were present that day. But what happens if someone mistakes that through my blog (research report, or conference presentation) I intend to present a “truth”? Can I ever prevent others from misunderstanding, or even misusing my words if they suffer from chronic need to generalize? Yes, I can try to express my self clearly, but how clear is possible to be would still be limited because a texts (according to Bakhtin) is always dependent on at least to participants – in addition to the text’s physical conditions and format, the present contexts … and all of the previous contexts and experiences the participants carry with them.

Communication is complicated! Writing about complex processes (as children’s meaning making is) feels like trying to wind up treads which are all tied up. If I pool too hard, they will tie worse… or tear. I know that there is a possible choice to cut them in small pieces - but then I would be disconnecting them from their original contexts, and someone would probably accuse me for simplifying…. I really need help with this! … And I am secretly hoping that my conversations with Robert Stake and other wise people would somehow help me to get out of this knot…

Connections

On April 26-th, I presented my phd-project at the College of Education, University of Illinois. Liora Bresler was so kind to arrange the seminar and invite people from the education and other departments who might be interested in my study. Among the 12 people that arrived, some had their interests in early childhood (like Robert Stake, and Nancy Hertzog with her guests), some in education in general (as Walter Feinberg and Bekisizwe Ndimande), and some with interests in arts-based methods (as Liora Bresler). One person was a researcher in mathematics (Gloriana Gonzalez) but found familiarities with my project thought some of the theoretical framework we both use (Michael Halliday).

After my presentation, we had time for a few questions, but I am still in the process of meeting the people who were there, and I keep getting feed back from them. My conversations with wonderful, wise and kind Walter Feinberg have developed in many different directions, based on our life stories rather than narrowed to my study. It is amazing how many connections can be found between different worlds, lives or studies! Bekisizwe Ndimande was right when he said “There are always connections” to my question if my study had any significance for his study of education in South Africa.


Daniel Walsh (one of the writers of the book “Studying children in context”) has given me valuable feed back on my presentation, and has really challenged me to search for a better balance between complexity (which without doubt is there) and a narrow focus (which is certainly simplifying the complexity, but is necessary in order to understand). We can not understand everything in the same time – as much as we can not make a “theory of everything”.